Jesus... none of these socialists had even the slightest shred of spirit to attempt to justify their lust for power with some claim to merit. Well, except promethean, in a completely abstract way, reifying his own will to power as historic necessity.

Futile oblivion on the whole.Indifference to other beings suffering turns out to be a constant in Socialists. The whole isis story revealed this to me and does so here again.

Serendipper wrote:You've committed at least 2 major logical fallacies on this thread: that potentiality = certainty and every venezuelan is an expert in economics by virtue of being venezuelan. Though, I'll have to consult Silhouette for the proper names.

I love how I've gained this reputation with you However I don't actually have any special or long-standing expertise with fallacies, I just had the patience some time ago to trawl through lists of fallacies to give me sufficient context to go back through them at later dates to find the name of a fallacy that I've identified with sufficient success. I'd like to think that this speaks for some natural abilities of mine, but probably speaks far more to the lack of effort by others

Not having a go at you by the way, you actually seem to be interested and looking into getting to the same point and probably beyond - clichés about how long it look to build Rome applied just as much to me as they will anyone else, the important thing is another cliché about it never being too late to start something.

You're the nomenclature man who can tell me what I'm talking about And I think identifying fallacies by name is a rare expertise.

I'm not particularly good with labels, which apparently includes vocabulary considering I ran about the forum admonishing "superficially sensible, but actually false ideas" without knowing I could save real estate by simply saying "specious". But then the problem is: how many know what specious means? So by educating myself, I'm making communication more difficult as most folks would probably assume specious means "silly" without looking it up.

I do better with concepts, the nuts and bolts, and although I can't remember the quadratic formula, I'll never forget how to derive it. Likewise, I know the fallacies, but can't remember the names. I could learn what Bulverism means, but by using the term I'm relying on someone else to look it up, and if a person could be trusted to look something up, then I probably wouldn't need to use the term in the first place

On the other hand, you have a innate talent for words and enjoy such, so rather than struggle with what I'm not good at, I'll concentrate on what I do best and fall on the mercy of the naturally talented to polish it up for me, if they would be so kind

I love this point you've made about every Venezuelan not being an expert in economics by virtue of being Venezuelan - it's very similar to scientists often being taken as authorities on all aspects of science when in reality they are most often only experts in specific fields of science.

I could point out a very subtle difference in venezuelans and scientists which is the latter is practiced at being scientific, so there is some merit in considering the opinion of a scientist outside of his field. But what skill or talent does a venezuelan have by virtue of being venezuelan? If the topic were about the equatorial climate, then I could see a venezuelan as more of an expert than a canadian, but still might defer to a meteorologist.

It probably takes anyone here less than a second to think of an American who is by no means an expert in economics by virtue of being American. Why doesn't this apply to Venezuelans and Venezuela?

He didn't think it through, but bulveristically assumed the premise before finding evidence. I think all absolutists do that because absolute truth is inherently baseless and held on faith, and evidence of having an absolutist proclivity is using terms like "honor". Absolutists are practiced at not thinking things through.

Hell, who is an expert in economics?

I don't think economists disagree with each other as much as colloquially suspected. Kenneth Arrow for instance taught many economists who went on to win nobel prizes. The problem isn't economics, but politics (ie the interest of the capitalists to keep people down for profit).

Chomsky characterized Adam Smith as liberal, but conservatives have distorted his teaching and pigeonholed him into the capitalist category. Milton Friedman is often championed by capitalists, but they make no mention of his negative income tax idea. The economists are in far more agreement than disagreement, but the capitalists have incentive to distort.

A liberal economist is a professor at university.A conservative economist is a hedge fund manager.

If there was such a thing, you'd think that somewhere there would exist at least one economy out there that was more robust than the mess you see all over the Western world, which is at least informally alleged to practice "the most" expertise in economics in the world, going by how economically developed it is relative to the rest of the world.

Singapore is a good example. Checkout singapore on google maps. The zoo is like a small city. With all the socialism, no wonder they don't have a minimum wage; they don't need to.

If I am to understand that the person in question is Pedro, it's quite clear that he has a significant economic bent, and honestly - even if he has attempted to educate himself economically, I see no sign from what I've read of him showing any objectivity of the kind that an economically educated person would normally be inclined to demonstrate.

I can't understand how any intellectually honest person could listen to Rush, ad hom extraordinaire, without getting nauseous.

"Socialists think they deserve to be not be poor, and this is why" appears to be driving implication behind this thread - and honestly a great many threads including one I've recently been wasting a lot of of my time on.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men

If a person has the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, then he has the right not to be poor. Especially if the only reason he is poor is because the rich "deserve" to keep "their" money, which they pirated honestly.

I'd even go as far as saying Bulverism is one of the sources of today's mutilated political discourse.

Capitalists tend to see competition as best for the group as a whole and Socialists tend to see cooperation as best for the group as a whole.

That's a profound observation and I wish it were as innocent as a capitalist merely advocating competition as a virtue to society, but it's far more nefarious than that. It's much easier to be a winner by pushing others down than in lifting oneself up. Remember the baby video? They will take less for themselves if it means even less for someone else. That's in no way beneficial to society. Remember organ-donor guy? He didn't have society's interests in mind.

To finish on a light note, I wouldn't wish for this measure of copper because it takes about 10^5 atoms to reach the width of a human hair, and that's just a line of atoms with only the width of 1 atom. Try 10^10 times someone mentions Venezuela without knowing what they're talking about to get only a flat cross section of a human hair, and 10^15 to get a small grain of copper. That's 1 quadrillion mentions

Oh yes, good point, I should settle for quarks of copper atoms for every mention lest my penny get too big for the universe

Or is the purpose of this thread only to vent by means of telling other people what they think without any wish for feedback other than confirmation?If so I can leave you to it, if you want?

Serendipper wrote:You're the nomenclature man who can tell me what I'm talking about And I think identifying fallacies by name is a rare expertise.

Jeez, the flattery...

Serendipper wrote:But then the problem is: how many know what specious means? So by educating myself, I'm making communication more difficult as most folks would probably assume specious means "silly" without looking it up.

It can work both ways, I reckon. Somebody like Hitchens would brazenly reel off terminology, references, quotations, and even superficially the fluency would only make him sound more convincing even though doubtless it would be better if more people knew exactly what he meant. Encouraging others to look up these things up for themselves is a good habit to instil, I think, even if it's motivated by the fear of not keeping up in future.

I still tend to be selective with the complexity of my language for the sake of accessibility, but I'll use terminology if the prosody effectively punctuates my key concepts. <--> Some casual assonance is also nice.

It also depends on your audience - clearly a "straight talking" president communicates better to the reckless and sophisticated demonstrations of understanding requisite to the role of presidency communicate better to the concerned.

Serendipper wrote:Oh yes, good point, I should settle for quarks of copper atoms for every mention lest my penny get too big for the universe

Haha, a nice comeback.

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Yes, as I see it, Capitalism is a merciful, human and natural type of mindset, which takes a lot of discipline and downright merit to uphold. Not everyone is willing to show such merit, or discipline.Many people have simply the desire for comfort, and they see people in big cars and think "I should have that". Why? "Because I feel I should".And then this gets extrapolated to "we should have that", when socialists get together and spew their gall and conspire to "take over the world".

And because there are now a bunch of them screaming together in a room, they start to imagine there is a rationale to it all, besides the primordial drive of envy.

Organized envy wearing the mask of rationality.

What is lacking in all Socialists is loftiness. There are no philosophers here so no one will understand this but Ill say it anyway; this, loftiness, is how nature seduces herself to herself, how she draws out the exorbitant efforts of self overcoming that is its life essence.

A socialist prefers to be unhappy for his fellow man over being happy for his fellow man. He needs to look down, he can not bear to look at that which is more splendorous and be conscious of that fact.Whatever lives in splendor is, per the Socialist heart which is small and cold, a sinner, a transgressor, a "the rich". Socialists can not see persons, only categories.

It addresses the question: what is prosperity? At one point along the line the definition was altered for the masses.Using the sexual doctrine of Freud, society was altered from a need- into a desire-economy, and consumerism, which indeed is self-consumerism, was born.

Social engineering has transformed the bulk of mankind into a highly volatile substance which at the same time is less inclined to be volatile en masse.

Jakob wrote:Yes, as I see it, Capitalism is a merciful, human and natural type of mindset, which takes a lot of discipline and downright merit to uphold. Not everyone is willing to show such merit, or discipline.

Yes, this is how I understand the Capitalist framework of understanding.

You also explain well how I understand the understanding of Socialists within the Capitalist framework of understanding. But am I to also understand that you regard alternative frameworks of understanding as without merit, correctness and thus relevance whatsoever?

Jakob wrote:And because there are now a bunch of them screaming together in a room, they start to imagine there is a rationale to it all, besides the primordial drive of envy.

Organized envy wearing the mask of rationality.

I went to a couple of local Socialist party meetings in my country, and believe me it was nothing but confirmation bias. Are you suggesting that this would not be the same at any other point in the spectrum?

Jakob wrote:What is lacking in all Socialists is loftiness. There are no philosophers here so no one will understand this but Ill say it anyway; this, loftiness, is how nature seduces herself to herself, how she draws out the exorbitant efforts of self overcoming that is its life essence.

Poetic and continental as this may be, I am familiar with Nietzsche and your value ontology enough to grasp the gist of what you are talking about. However, as someone with Socialist sympathies, am I to suppose that I garner no credence in your eyes as a philosopher by this fact alone? Am I to also understand from you that as a lover of wisdom, there is in your reckoning only a particular path to maximising said wisdom in line with Capitalism and not at all through Socialism? No assumptions this far, just questions.

Jakob wrote:A socialist prefers to be unhappy for his fellow man over being happy for his fellow man. He needs to look down, he can not bear to look at that which is more splendorous and be conscious of that fact.Whatever lives in splendor is, per the Socialist heart which is small and cold, a sinner, a transgressor, a "the rich". Socialists can not see persons, only categories.

Is that right? Have you explored Socialist sympathies in yourself such that this is the only rationale that could possibly explain them? If you have I am tempted to now assume that you did so in bad faith, else you would know that sociable happiness is optimised by the happiness of not only oneself but others also such as family, friends and even beyond. By contrast, yes, the unhappiness of fellow man does diminish the happiness of oneself, yet the latter is not the primary reason as you suggest but merely a consequence of the former. The Socialist does not fail to see persons, quite the contrary: they see persons if anything too clearly - hence the empathy. This is only conceptually simplified as a group, when in fact it is an overflow.

Will you now disregard what I have said to return to what you have initially been presenting as where have set your heart - prior even to any discussion?

Silhouette wrote:It can work both ways, I reckon. Somebody like Hitchens would brazenly reel off terminology, references, quotations, and even superficially the fluency would only make him sound more convincing even though doubtless it would be better if more people knew exactly what he meant. Encouraging others to look up these things up for themselves is a good habit to instil, I think, even if it's motivated by the fear of not keeping up in future.

I still tend to be selective with the complexity of my language for the sake of accessibility, but I'll use terminology if the prosody effectively punctuates my key concepts. <--> Some casual assonance is also nice.

It also depends on your audience - clearly a "straight talking" president communicates better to the reckless and sophisticated demonstrations of understanding requisite to the role of presidency communicate better to the concerned.

What's held on faith is defended by violence. Add that to my "theists commit atrocities" argument

From my experience, every demographic is equally at fault.

From my experience, age is correlated to propensity to insult, but it could be skewed by the fact that age is correlated to conservatism.. or perhaps vice versa.

You can test this right now today. Just go to a no-holds-barred political forum and argue in favor of a minimum wage. Note how many insults you get. Then argue against climate change. Note how many insults you get.

When I performed the said experiment, zero liberals insulted me and zero conservatives did not. Let me know if you get a different result.

So what explains this? (Besides old people being cranky) Well, conservatives can only hold beliefs on faith because all evidence is antipodal to their conclusion. There is no recourse except to insult.

Socialists and the like tends to know a lot less than nothing. That is to say, what they know is almost always a tapestry of bizarre fiction. It think they are too proud, in their own experience, to know real things.

So a Socialist who knows precisely nothing is, by comparison to his type, a kind of wizard.

But so far Ive only met Socialists who fall far short of this standard.

Capitalists do possess knowledge, as some knowledge is required for successful enterprise.

The most immediately evident thing about Socialists and their gatherings, such as the heap of bugs in this thread, is their surrealistic power to bore. It is even greater than their power to disgust. Possibly. Though that, given their axiomatic support of large scale malice and their palpable hatred of honesty and bravery, is quite a claim.

Silhouette, no one responded to my own inquiries.You all went on a complete deconstructivist rave which is what always happens.Yes but there is no meaning and rich people should give money to the state.I dont buy that as an attempt at discourse.Its not been any fun, obviously.

Jakob wrote:Oh, you 'chuckle' don't you? - that is exactly what the christian fundamentalist on our previos board used to bring out as a response when confronted with something he could not handle intellectually.

Handle something "intellectually"? I have not noticed anything intellectual being presented by you. Please rephrase your "intellectual" thought which I cannot handle. As to Christian Fundamentalists, I don't much talk to them pretty much for the same reason that I don't talk to Nietzschean Fundamentalists.

Your soul betrays itself; only when faced with someone who calls himself a master do you feel inclined to respond - whith 'you are not a master!'

Actually I just laugh at the unMasterly conduct. That followers of Nietzsche are prone to overstatement and over-self-estimation is not a surprise.

I've yet to see you respond rationally to a single argument...

If you would like to actually present an "argument", I'd like to see what you think an argument looks like.

Some things never change:

Dunamis wrote:Ah. I get it. What you mean by "intellectual argument" that others can't handle is any non-systematic assertion such that non-contradiction has no more bearing. By what standard this is either an "argument" or "intellectual" I don't know. But I see no "intellectual argument" on your behalf. Of course when you unleash the word "argument" so to mean anything Jakob asserts, and "intellectual" to mean anything that Jakob says, then yes, I can't handle your intellectual arguments.

Serendipper wrote:From my experience, age is correlated to propensity to insult, but it could be skewed by the fact that age is correlated to conservatism.. or perhaps vice versa.

You can test this right now today. Just go to a no-holds-barred political forum and argue in favor of a minimum wage. Note how many insults you get. Then argue against climate change. Note how many insults you get.

When I performed the said experiment, zero liberals insulted me and zero conservatives did not. Let me know if you get a different result.

So what explains this? (Besides old people being cranky) Well, conservatives can only hold beliefs on faith because all evidence is antipodal to their conclusion. There is no recourse except to insult.

Try it. I'm interested.

I'll take you up on that, but in the meantime, consider that climate change and minimum wage aren't hot button issues for most progressives, at least not anymore, but try telling them abortion is murder, about black and female privilege, that same sex marriage is unconstitutional, there're only two genders, the holocaust is a hoax, the Jews perpetrated 9/11, and watch them flee to their safe spaces, insult you (misogynist, racist, homophobe, anti-Semite, asshole, dumbass, etcetera), even threaten your life.

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And I'm not sure why you have it out for old people, young people are just as likely to fly off the handle, they haven't learned how to control their anger, and they're also far more prone to violence than old people.

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Jakob, of the approximately 80 questions asked so far on this thread (not counting duplicates) you have asked only 10.

4 were to Karpel, 3 were general rhetorical questions that you only asked to answer yourself, 1 was the initial post's question.Just 2 were in a response to things I said, but one was an answer in the form of a question: I questioned who actually said the thread title and you responded "Socialists?"The other was a question you posed on behalf of promethean, which appears to be a simple inversion of the same thread title, though I think you made a typo in asking it.I've asked you about 17.

You are not asking questions, Jakob. You have no inquiries. You're simply asserting claims - venting, like I said. Even the initial question was solely to initate this whole rhetoric.

Do I need to answer your questions to Karpel to encourage actual discussion from you? Do I need to answer the questions you only asked to answer yourself?

My attempt has been to get to the core of the initial question, but you are evading. This is why I have happily offered to leave you to it - your purpose is clear. I am sorry you are getting no fun from what you are setting up for yourself - ironically it seems to be you who "prefers to be unhappy for his fellow man over being happy for his fellow man": you the anti-Socialist. All the evidence supports that this is all just projection, which is fine - I don't want to interfere with what you need to do to express your frustration. If you are only interested in baiting frustration from others, I'm simply leaving that to any others who want to take it.

socialists and the people the socialists defend and stand for should not be characterized as the same regarding their intent. we tend to identify the lowly and downtrodden as the symbol of socialist theory... so that when we hear them cry 'i'm a victim', we associate the theory of socialism with that indignation; we say 'ah, this theory must be based in ressentiment, for look at all the miserable complainers who envy the wealthy.' but there is a subtle non sequitur hidden behind such reasoning, one which the socialist theorist (if he knows his shit) does not come under the jurisdiction of. and it goes like this: the working class cannot envy the bourgeois unless there is something about the bourgeois that the working class is not responsible for creating. perhaps a personality trait, or a talent, for example. but the bourgeois did not create his wealth... he merely appropriated it, took it into his possession under the permission of a specific kind of civil contract which put laws in place to protect such appropriation and property. very technically speaking, the socialist can't envy the bourgeois on that account because the object of envy already belongs to the socialist. what you call 'envy' is really an intent to repossess what has always belonged to the workers in the first place.

on the other hand, if what he envies is the capitalist's ability to own without producing, he wouldn't be a real socialist, but a farce - which accounts for much of the rabble; the fair weather socialists who would not hesitate to exploit themselves if given the opportunity. such people are not socialists and know nothing of the logic of socialist reasoning. the purpose is not to quench a thirst for revenge, but to modify that specific kind of socio-economic contract that protects the capitalist's right to appropriate without producing anything. it's an incredibly simple premise which conservatives endlessly conflate and obfuscate to over-complicate the matter and introduce multifarious elements into socialism's modus operandi. one such maneuver would be to say socialism is based in envy. of course, there is the anarchist and socialist rabble who declare themselves 'victims' with what N called that righteous indignation, but this conclusion is assuming them all to be moralists. there are some not ignoble or impressed enough to be able to experience envy. immoralists and healthy narcissists, free from all those petty, plebian sentiments that are so human all too human. think spock, che guevara and loki rolled into one.

and i am one such anarchist, sometimes known as bodacious in various anarchist and socialist circles. a renegade philosopher anarchist who prefers the dialectic of a 12 gauge to a well crafted argument, any day. as the good chairman once said but didn't quite say; power doesn't come out of the barrel of a philosophy book.

but nevermind that. just remember this subtle detail; one can't be envied when what they have is not theirs or of their own creation in the first place.

no. socialism cannot be reduced to such trivial mincing and squabbling.

This is my core position from when I was a kid and active in causes.Much has been lost since then.One thing I found out along the way is that the leaderships of Causes and Social Parties are invariably corrupt. Oxfam spends 90 percent of its contributions on Overhead, which was revealed to go buying Africans for sex.

Can't argue with you there.

I now think the only hope is in the fact that some people actually have more money than they could spend. This is a firm basis for a true ecologic revolution, which is all I care about really.

Capitalists never seem to run out of meaningless things to do that benefit no one, including themselves.

I fear that the only hope is that our Hedonism will save us - the will to enjoy the planet as a natural thing. Socialism has failed, and I was part of trying very hard to protect things, to protect the Earth. Most of it is gone. I now see only potential for some lofty form of capital investments in the natural Earth as a product.